by Tim Richardson

Why not find out more how to maximise the money you spend on your baits in winter and spring and achieve better catches?! See these expert tips proven to work for more cold water carp again and again and save you money! Use these tips to help you right now!

Carp do not digest bait very well in colder conditions so it is extremely vital you design and select your baits and ground baits for exactly this situation to maximise your greatest chances of bites and literally in effect stop actually wasting good money on bait! Of course one way to do this is use as little bait as possible, but this is only part of the solution and does not maximise your chances because you will not necessarily be applying bait and baiting in the optimum ways possible for best results. Many anglers will choose to utilise water-soluble PVA products in combination with whole or crushed boilies, yet you still have to pay for the PVA of course, however it baits-up exactly where your hook bait is, so drawing most attention to it without filling fish up.

In ground baiting for winter and spring carp it is wise to pre-bait if at all possible and then apply minimal bait while actually fishing, perhaps using soluble pellets, stick or method or spod mixes incorporating broken boilies as opposed to whole boilies at this time. You choice of what to ground bait with and how to do it is a skill and art form that very many carp anglers really need to develop far more as it is vital in manipulating suitable carp feeding behavioural responses to your hook baits! Ground bait using bread is a very reliable method and almost anything excluding indigestible oils can be added; for example boilie base mix and homemade boilie liquid additives and foods.

If you choose to exploit bread in winter and spring you will find it is not necessarily a small fish ground bait base; in fact far from it! In the coldest of nights you can get bites from big carp over bread-based ground baits and of course, know fish are gorging on free bait very little without actually sampling your hook baits with this method. Boilies in standard bottom bait, or pop-up bait or critically-balanced form etc all are reliable hook baits and always will be.

Increase your bite rate by improving the effective addtives and ingredients in your baits and ground baits that induce more sampling of hook baits having not fed fish up on free baits first! Water-solubility and digestible potential of your baits is paramount. Pellets and boilies made with little oil as possible (that make baits less digestible and less effective in cold water) are very highly recommended!

The high oil pellets usually associated with best effectiveness in warmer water temperatures, such as the infamous halibut pellets are not so great in low temperatures. Low oil pellets which are going to encourage far more prolonged feeding and better bait digestion are hugely preferable. The low oil pellets water-soluble attractors and feeding stimulators etc, will be far more able to disperse attraction more effectively in cold water, in contrast to high oil halibut pellets.

Glugs and soaks based on liquid proteins, spleen and liver extracts, and things like herb and spice terpenes and flavour components like butyric acid and so on, really can help catches now. Extra liquid foods and boosting attraction substances will multiply the performance and catch rates on hook baits and ground baits ranging from bread to boilies, pellets, particles and even maggots and fake baits. Thinking far more about your winter and spring hook baits and ground baits, and their incredibly important method and rate of application is so underestimated by very many carp anglers; try to stimulate carp senses as much as possible and build on your knowledge of tips and edges to draw on!

When the huge importance of the relationships between carp senses and your effective (or ineffective) choices of hook baits and ground baits become cornerstones of your fishing attack, you will not stop until you have read as much as possible on this subject and gathered an extremely effective arsenal to stop you wasting as much money on blanks and wasted bait as possible; so keep reading on...

By Tim Richardson.

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